The Effects of Japanese Civil Society on Policy-Making
I. Introduction
My interest in this project began after studying Japan for four years as an undergraduate and realizing I knew relatively little of the country’s political atmosphere. I assumed after reading Western political scholars’ views on the subject, that it was a relatively homogonous nation and only after the Occupational Authority entered Japan had the country emerged with democratic ideals and a true notion of liberal rights. It is true that citizens’ movements are a comparatively recent modern phenomenon in a country filled with millennia of rich cultural and political history. Still today, however numbers of Westerners, including some scholars, see Japan through Orientalism’s foreign and exotic eyes and continue the assumption that hierarchy rules politics and the working class disengages themselves from day-to-day politics.
This paper not only attempts to present a broad understanding of Japan’s political history, but also show how civil society has transformed from early Meiji society to post World War II restructuring. While outsiders believe democracy and liberal rights are an inherently novel part of Japanese culture, this paper illustrates the historical basis for a rich electorate, thriving with individual and interpersonal interest in freedom, rights, and the political environment around them.
The cleavages that divide civil society and the government policy-making in Japan have been written about at length. The groups examined in this paper, including the Meiji Popular Rights Movement and the post World War II environmental movement, formed organizations to address the conflict that constantly attacked their personal values. In each case, the government refused to proactively respond, from the lack of representation during the late 19th century to the pollution that destroyed lands and lives in the 1960s and 1970s. Both of these groups asked for policy changes from local governments in order to promote their efforts through political participation, and some of these measures progressed to national levels. From the beginning of the Meiji Restoration to today, Japan exhibits dramatic progressive political awareness and engagement, therefore I deny any allegation that Japan was undemocratic until General MacArthur’s restructuring in 1945.
Throughout the scholarly debate and the execution of factual evidence, three problems arise in the comparative analysis of the two examples. The first consists of the argument that Japan’s civil society, specific to the two time periods analyzed in this paper, was formulated directly within and of the state.
On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II (Prange et al., 1981: p.174). On February 19, 1942, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War and Military Commanders to prescribe areas of land as excludable military zones (Roosevelt, 1942). Effectively, this order sanctioned the identification, deportation, and internment of innocent Japanese Americans in War Relocation Camps across the western half of the United States. During the spring and summer of 1942, it is estimated that almost 120,000 Japanese Americans were relocated from their homes along the West Coast and in Hawaii and detained in U.S. government-run concentration camps (Daniels, 2004: p.3). Approximately two-thirds of these men and women were either nisei—second generation Japanese—or sansei—third generation—Japanese Americans, the other third were issei—first generation—Japanese immigrants living in the United States at the time. While issei generation Japanese people were born in Japan and were not eligible for United States citizenship, members of the nisei and sanei generations were born in the United States, and therefore, were legal American citizens. Regardless of this distinction in citizenship, however, American powers perceived all of these men and women to be an imposing threat to the security of the United States.
The first year that Dachau was open it housed about 4,800 prisoners. The number rose as the persecution of Jews increased. On November 10-11, 1938, more than 10,000 Jewish men were interned there. Dachau camp was also a training center for SS concentration camp guards. Because Dachau was the first regular concentration camp the way it was organized and the routine they had became a model for the many other concentration camps that were later made. Dachau had two sections, one was the crematories where many Jewish bodies were burned day and night 24/7 and the other which was the camp area. The camp area which was the second part of Dachau had 32 barracks, with one for those who opposed what the Nazi’s were doing, and another one that was for medical experiments. Administration...
In 1900 Britain was in many respects the world’s leading nation, enjoying a large share of world trade, a dominant position in the international money market, and possessing a far flung empire supported by the world’s most powerful navy. Japan was a complete contrast, sharing with Britain only the fact that it too was a nation of Islands lying off the shore of a major continent. Until the 1860s it had possessed a social and economic structure more akin to that of feudal, rather than twentieth century, Europe. By the 1990s, the positions were almost reversed. This paper sets out to examine the contrasting democratic political systems of the two nations and to explore the social and democratic consequences of the changes that have occurred.
Ives, Christopher. "Wartime Nationalism and Peaceful Representation: Issues Surrounding the Multiple Zens of Modern Japan ." Japan Studies Review Five (2001): 37-46. Print.
Nakae Chomin’s Discourse was published in 1887, a period that demarcated a crucial turning point in Japan’s politics and economy. The book itself suggested the great debate that the people of Japan were having in deciding the future of the nation, and draws on Chomin’s studies on Western politics in France and his journalistic and political involvements in Japan.
Dachau was the first concentration camp to be instituted and was established on March 20, 1933. It is located in the southern German town of Dachau and is about ten miles northwest of Munich (Goss 2014). Two days after the opening of the camp, the first prisoners arrived; the majority of whom were political opponents of the Third Reich, Nazi Germany. Dachau’s first commandant was SS official Hilmar Waekerle. He was later replaced in June when he was convicted of murdering a prisoner. On May 25, 1933, Hitler exempted him and all other criminal activities that took place in concentration camps; he said it was out of the jurisdiction of the law (Timeline of Dachau 2014). Even though Hilmar’s conviction was overturned, a new leader was designated, Theodor Eicke. He would be the one to convert this camp into the model of what other concentration camps should resemble. Before the camp was liberated, nine other commandants would also take on this role (Goss 2014).At the end of the first year of the camp, there was an estimated 4,800 prisoners present in the camp.
O'Brien, David M. 1996. To Dream of Dreams: Religious Freedom and Constitutional Politics in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
The holocaust was a horrific period of time where unbelievable criminal acts were carried out against the Jews, Gypsies, and other racial gatherings. These defenseless individuals were sent from unsanitary ghettos to death camps, one being Auschwitz. The Auschwitz death camp comprised of three camps, all in which are placed in Poland. Numerous forms of extermination came about overtime to speed up the killing process. Life at the death camps was cut short for those who weren’t fit to work; such as the elderly, women, the mentally disabled, and young children. The others were put work while being starved to death. Experiments were held on dwarfs, twins, and other misfits were carried out by Josef Mengele. These inhuman acts against the Jews were all held in secret from society by the Nazis until liberation day.
Hitler became chancellor of Germany and he did not like the Jewish people so he made death camps or most commonly known as concentration camps and him and his followers killed about 5,860,129 Jewish people.The Jewish people thrived at a population of approximately 9,796,840 million before the Holocaust. After the Holocaust there about 3,936,711 left. It was a terrible time for the Jewish people.Most people were killed in death camps or concentration camps.The camps were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, etc. There was also Einsatzgruppe a mobile killing squads that when around and murdered Jewish people. The prisoners in concentration camps were jews, gypsies, socialists, and homosexuals. There were 20,000 of these camps built and used during the holocaust. When Hitler became chancellor and the Nazis became in charge the Sturmabteilung ,Schutzstaffel , police, and local authorities built these camps so they could incarcerate opponents. The Schutzstaffel established bigger camps in Berlin, Munich, and Saxony. In 1934 the Schutzstaffel was the only organization that could establish and manage these concentration camps. Lichtenburg was an all female camp only.
Tsuzuki, Chushichi. The Pursuit of Power in Modern Japan, 1825-1995. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Questia. Web. 28 Apr. 2011.
...ty for one that better suited its capitalistic tendency. That opportunity came in1868 when the Meiji imperial rule was able to overthrow the Tokugawa regime, setting off a political, economic, social and cultural change that transformed Japan. As Japan embraced modernity with full force, some began to realize the negative impact of modernization on the rural life, social structure and most importantly on its culture, blaming it on the western influence on its modernization. Thus as Japan neared World War II, it embraced a new sense of modernization, one that was separate from westernization, creating a nationalistic and fascist government policy. Japanese society is characteristic of plurality and opposing value systems coexisting. As new ideals and institutions arise, Japan sees itself transforming and changing at the hands of internal and external forces.
Japanese attitude and values inevitably affect how we view, feel and act about things as is exemplified in relation to politics. The functioning of political institutions reflects the attitudes, norms and expectations of citizens. In times of systematic change, a supportive public can facilitate the development of a new political system, while the lack of public support can destroy the foundation of a political system. In order to understand the tendencies for present and future behavior in a nation, we must examine a country's political culture-the public's attitude toward politics and their role within the political system. It is important to recognize that political culture does not explain everything about politics
Stockwin, J. A. Chapter 7: Who Runs Japan? In Governing Japan: Divided Politics in a Resurgent Economy (4th ed., pp. 46-72). London, The United Kingdom: Blackwell.
Our preliminary class gave a brief, yet detailed outline of major events affecting the East Asian region. Within that class, prompted by our limited geographical knowledge of Asia, we were given a fundamental explanation of the geographical locations of the various events taking place in the region. In subsequent classes, we were introduced to the major wars, political shifts, and economic interests which shaped Japan, China and Korea to what they are today. We examined the paradigm of pre-modern Japanese governance, the Shogunate, and the trained warriors which defended lord and land, Samurai. In addition, we examined the socio-economic classes of Medieval Japan, which included the Samurai, peasants, craftsmen, and the merchants. We also examined pre-1945 Japan’s policies toward foreign entities, notably the Sakoku Policy, which sought to expunge all foreign presence and commerce in an effort to protect its borders and culture. 1945, however, saw ...
Fifty years after the end of the second World War, it is easy to look back on the American occupation of Japan and see it as a mild nudge to the left rather than a new beginning for the country. We still see an emperor, even if only as a symbol. Industry, when it was rebuilt, was under much of the same leadership as before the war. Many elements of the traditional lifestyle remained–with less government support and in competition with new variants. The Japanese people remained connected to a culture which was half western and half Japanese. Nevertheless, it is irrefutable that the surrender in 1945 had a major impact on the lives of the Japanese. Political parties, elected by the populous, became a great deal more influential in the government. This changed the dynamics of Japanese industry, even if the zaibatsu were sill the foundation of the economy. Financial success took on a new character; the production of high tech goods for sale to the world’s most developed countries was now a better source of income. The affluence of the upper class was more evenly distributed. On a broader scale, for the first time, America had more influence than European powers. The prevention of the formation of a military put the focus of the government on trade, the United Nations, and the cold war rather than an empire in Asia. Simultaneously, social attitudes and lifestyle were more independent of the government and consumer led.